Nomenclature

Nomenclature

Contributed by Patrizia Jereb and Clyde Roper

Chun (1906) named Toxeuma belone from the Indian Ocean at 10°08'S, 97°14'E on the basis of a single specimen of 51 mm ML. Lane (1957) pointed out that the generic name Toxeuma was preoccupied and proposed the name Belonella belone. Nesis (1972) maintained a generic separation between Belonella and Taonius based in part on his observation of the different consistency of the tissues (gelatinous in Taonius and leathery in Belonella). Belonella and Taonius were synonymised by Voss (1980), even though some authors did not accept this action(e.g., Nesis, 1987, Okutani, 2005). The identity/ validity of Chun's species, however, was long considered uncertain; ongoing research (Voss, pers. comm.), supporting previously published data (Nesis, 1987, Voss, 1988, Voss et al., 1992b) and working hypotheses (Young and Mangold, 2008), strongly indicate that T. belone should be synonymised with T. pacificus (the latter species name obtained by synonymising Belonella (pacifica pacifica, Nesis, 1972) with Taonius). Thus, the new combination is derived, Taonius belone (Chun, 1906), the specific name belone having priority.